What the Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā Trust says

28.

29.

30.

31.

32. hands of the Settlement Trust, the Crown could have found out if it had been at all interested.

(i) The claimants in Wai 429 told the Minister about their opposition to the settlement in their letter of 24 August 2021. 42 The Minister replied without addressing the issue of mandate but rather focusing on the failure of the resumption application and the need to move on in the interests of the iwi.43

The Crown cannot cite the ratification vote of 2018 as evincing approval for the settlement, because it is clear that in fact it relied on the 2021 ‘approval’ vote when it decided to sign the Deed of Settlement. The Minister’s letter of 21 July 2021 confirms that the Crown was looking to the trustee elections and the vote by the claimant community to confirm the proposed settlement. How could the Crown now purport to rely on another vote for another settlement package?

In the 2021 vote, there was a bigger turnout but lower support for the revised settlement. 44

The Settlement Trust certainly held the vote out to the claimant population as being the one on which the Crown would be focusing, saying in a communication of 30 August 2021, 45 ‘we await to hear if the Crown accepts the outcome’; the settlement could proceed ‘if the Crown accepts the result as sufficient support’ . 46 The only reason for the Crown’s denying that the 2021 vote was a ratification is because of the low turnout and low level of approval by those who turned out – the lowest that the Crown has ever accepted.47

While the Crown was making up its mind about proceeding to sign the Deed of Settlement, the parties were asking the Supreme Court to grant leave to leapfrog the Court of Appeal in the litigation process. When the Supreme Court granted that leave, Wai 429 claimants thought the Crown might say ‘taihoa’. On 22 October 2021, they heard that the Crown was determined to proceed.

48

Justice Cooke set this Tribunal’s preliminary decision aside,

49 so effectively there is no extant determination of the Tribunal on the Wai 429 resumption application. If it was good enough for the Crown to wait for litigation processes provided in law to take their course in 2017, why not now? Clause 6 of the Forests Agreement provided for the Crown and Māori to work together on claims to Crown forest land in good faith. Now, the Crown is satisfied that the litigation has reached a point as favourable to the Crown as the Crown could hope for, so the Crown chooses to extinguish the claimants’ claims. The fact

42 Wai 429, #A4(c) at 26 – 27. 43 Wai 429, #A8(a). 44 Wai 429, #A4 at [53]. 45 Wai 429, #A4 at Exhibit “I”. 46 Wai 429, #A4 at [55]. 47 Wai 3058, #A14. 48 Wai 429, #A8(b) at [2] 49 Mercury NZ Ltd v Waitangi Tribunal [2021] NZHC 654 at [148].

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